The personal thoughts of Gwearbennen Silver BearWalker Witch of the Hedge and Fae path. In awe of Nature, Flora and Fauna. With contributions from Daisy Mae.
Sunday, 21 December 2014
From me to you.
Friday, 19 December 2014
Creating Yule blessings.
Now that the recipients have got them in hand I thought you might like to have a look yourselves....
* Special people get special cards, although this year I ran out of time before I ran out of special people. Apologies to my sons and my sister and a few others! But I hasten to say that if you got a shop bought card you are no less special, indeed not! If you weren't special to me, you'd not get a card at all. I don't believe in being two faced like that. I mean why would I go to the trouble and expense to send a card to someone I never see or speak to or even email during the year? I'm hardly wanting to wish then blessings at Yule am I? <emphatic nod of head>
I have to apologise for grammar and spelling mistakes. I'm making no excuses, just apologising.
Monday, 15 December 2014
Occurrences occurred.
Things have either been happening within a whirlwind, or not happening in that very boring, 'stuck in bed unable to do much' way. The latter days I've simply not been up to threading a sentence together, which is annoying as writing on here would be the best past-time.
A few things have occurred.
It's become obvious that my new meds have the side effect of clinging to all food that enters my body and turning it into fat! Not ideal. Not ideal at all. I'm not saying I've become obese, I'm a long way off that, but I'm noticeably carrying a spare tyre. And not a bicycle sized one either! More of the Ford Fiesta size. Like many other physically disabled people, I'm in a catch 22 situation - exercising is difficult, even walking is hard or impossible on many days, so I rely on trying not to eat very much. Without exercise no matter how little I eat, I'll put weight on. But extra weight is really bad for me, my joints and spine suffer and of course, my old broken ticker will struggle to cope.
I read that Devon NHS has said it will refuse to treat overweight people*. It's so easy for them in charge to make such announcements thinking they're helping by scaring people into dieting, they don't seem to understand the problems of the disabled who can find it one frustrating issue.
* http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-30318546
Another occurrence
the new addition to the family has finally arrived; J'Max my new yellow Nissan Juke Tekna. Crammed full of the latest gadget
ry including monitored tyre pressures, voice control, cameras, reversing assistant, and heck knows what else. By next Yule I might just know half of what the buttons, knobs and switches actually do but right now I'm using the instruction manual. Nicest thing is the heated leather seats, a real help for my spinal problem. And did I say it's all in yellow? Yes, yellow. A massive event for one who always chooses black or grey, isn't it? I fancied a change.
Couple more occurrences that are worth mentioning.
My youngest son had his 29th birthday at the beginning of December. I managed to make him a cake, a chocolate Bundt cake. Sadly I forgot to take a photo so you'll just have to take my word for it, it was very nice, both in looks and taste /texture, even though I say it myself! I was relieved tbh as it's simply ages since I've been OK enough to bake.
Finally, my eldest son has been very poorly. I don't want to discuss it without his knowledge as he's a very private person, but he has finally been diagnosed with diverticulitis, something I know little about as it's something I don't have! Oh my! Something I don't have. How good to see and speak that sentence! Lol. Seriously, I've never seen him in so much pain, what a nasty condition it is. Thankfully the antibiotics have worked their magic and he's on the mend from the infection but has to alter his diet, which will help keep the condition in check.
If any of the five reading this suffers from diverticulitis and has tips and advice to give, I'd be grateful so that I can tell son.
Wednesday, 26 November 2014
There's a tramp!
Friday, 21 November 2014
The owl and the pussycat...
Didn't go to sea after all. The owl stayed on his special tree, his big eyes surveying all around him and not missing a thing. While the pussycat sat underneath, waiting for... What? The owl to fall asleep and off his perch? The owl to say something witty or wooey? Or maybe they really are best friends and share their mice supper?
I'll leave it to your imagination to decide.
Spring is coming
With each day we're closer to spring. It might not seem like it at the moment, weathers not very nice, without doubt worse is to come as winter draws her cloak around us. So to remind us of what's ahead I did this little bit of art today. I'm no good at naming my art so I'm just calling it Spring is coming.
Go forth and create
Not all is lost! I have a tablet! Not the kind that you gulp down either, goddess knows I've plenty of them, but a 7 inch beauty of a beast. A Nexus 7 2013. I know there's better and bigger ones out there but this suits me and now I've got used to it - only taken me 5 months - there's not much I can't do on it. It's on this life saver that my aforementioned problems are overcome.
So coming up is some art work I went forth and created today....
* I'm speaking metorphorically here, it's exactly what it feels like. So don't go thinking there's something incredibly brutal going on in this abode.
Wednesday, 19 November 2014
Brain has a mind of its own
So I'm asking, if he's not given the heads up, what helps a man choose the scent he does for his female recipient? Does he go browsing Boots and Debenhams,* sniffing all the various bottles until he finds one that reminds him of her? Maybe he goes for the one with prettiest /sexiest bottle? What about the celebrity perfumes, perhaps he fancies she would like to smell like Britney Spears, or Jordan or whoever else he fantasies? Some men take the trouble to try and find out by asking her female rellies and mates, or sneakily look through her drawers to find what she already wears. I'm sure they must?
But at the end of the day, I would think that most women love whatever bottle of perfume their men give to them, after all it shows he's taken the time and trouble -and perhaps even overcome embarrassment - just for her.
Sunday, 16 November 2014
When sleep won't come.
I've not slept during the night for the last week.
I'm very tired and would love to sleep.
But I simply can't sleep.
I'm well used to insomnia and I doubt there's a sleep inducing self remedy I've not tried. However all I can do is be patient and put up with it because I know it's only temporary. OK it might be another few days, another week, even a month before I finally start sleeping but eventually it will happen.
In the meantime there's books - the Kindle app for android has become my BFF, cutting out the frustrations of trying to keep my torch steady or needing to be wound up every few minutes, both feats that should be part of the Olympic games! Many of the books in my Kindle library are free but I do buy the occasional good read (hooray for samples that determine whether I'll enjoy it or not) and usually for no more than the price of a charity shop hard copy, dog eared book.
There's also the android apps that do a great job of helping time to pass. I'm not really a game person, I've tried Angry Birds etc but soon got bored. Ditto the match three type of games. On my tablet you'll find 'arty' apps like Kids Doodle, Oil Painter, and colouring 'books'. I've used some to make the artwork on this blog. None of them have cost me a penny. How brill is that!! I'm a buggar for getting apps, using them for a while, becoming bored and uninstalling them. I'm a Gemini so what do you expect!? Lol. But because I'm always doing this I find its important to have a decent cleaner installed, one that cleans out the left over files that some apps leave behind. At the moment I'm using SD Maid which I'm finding effective and easy to use.
Well, having shared all this with you I'm still awake but rather droopy eyed so maybe if I turn off and snuggle down I might get lucky. Wish me luck.
Night night. XXX
The Apps on my tablet that have creative fun with
Saturday, 15 November 2014
I found one of my old poems...
Penned in 2012 by yours truly...
Having it all.
Twas a calm sunny day
on a sea of deep blue
when we sallied forth
in our boat for two.
How we loved, we laughed,
we had a ball.
Hand in hand together,
my love we had it all.
Then along came a deep grey cloud
it dimmed the shining sun.
So we huddled even closer
while the storm around us spun.
But we loved , we laughed,
we had a ball,
Hand in hand together,
my love we had it all.
Our sail it was lambasted.
The dark, it made us shudder.
Hot, salty water stung our eyes,
tenaciously we held our rudder.
We still loved and laughed,
tried to have a ball,
hand in hand together.
My love we had it all .
The storm in time did blow away,
the wind and rain they died.
Drenched, I sat on tattered deck,
holding you close right by my side.
For we'll always love and laugh,
we'll have our ball, our sun.
Hand in hand together, my love, our journey carries on.
© Hedgerow Art 2012
Plans? that's tempting fate!
Cut to Tuesday; because of resting up the day before I was OK enough to unpack my luggage and medications etc. More of the latter than the former if I'm honest with you. It is much to my embarrassment that the amount of medications, pills, capsules, and liquids that I have to cart around to keep me going, has a bag all to themselves. Still, no doubt there's plenty of other people who need far more. Anyway, I came to put the empty cases on top of the wardrobe and on shoving them backwards I felt a hard thumping crack in my lumber spine. Now what had I done? My old, long standing spondylosis / spinal stenosis had been awakened rather sharply. That's what! I've got over ten years of coping with this ailment and generally I manage very well, being able to use the techniques taught by my physio to 'quieten' it down, so that it mutters in the background rather than screams full blast. So while it didn't actually bring me to my knees it came close, thus I ended up lying on the bed taking extra morphine, codeine, and paracetamol. Not all in one dose I hasten to add.
There I've been for the rest of the week - In bed unable to move freely. When I have to get out to go the loo, have a leg stretch and so forth, my movements are akin to a penguin who has pooed his pants. Even in agony i can laugh at myself, I think most sufferers of long standing illness and disability have this knack. After all, it's either laugh or cry and although I do my share of crying, I think - I certainly hope - that I do more laughing.
So much for the planning of gentle strolls in the park, round the lake, and the window shopping in town!! I am used to plans going awry or falling through entirely, of course I am, I've got fibromyalgia. You can't plan much when fibro is your companion for it has a mind of its own and your body belongs to it. I learnt early on that it's a case of grabbing the opportunities as they happen so as not to miss the good spells. When I feel OK then it's time to play, not faff around thinking. Thinking is for the bad spells. However it doesn't stop me from planning, old habits die hard, but now I don't get so upset when they don't happen. I get pissed off, sure I do but who wouldn't?
So here I am early Saturday morning, looking back at a week that has consisted of doing zero, zip, zilch physical activity, rested but still in agony. Stupid spine. It'd better not be the same next week, please don't let it be another week of this cos I have plans! {Wink}
Thursday, 13 November 2014
The best company
Let me introduce my two dogs, Zaffi and Lulu. Zaffi (the mop top) has been with us for some years now, I've lost count tbh, whereas Lulu (black and tan J.R) is relatively a newcomer of just 3 years. They both live in the home I share with my husband in Devon, so I see them every three weeks for three weeks. Such wonderful companions, they really are. I know my husband would be very lost without them and I certainly would! There's nothing nicer than the cuddles a dog can give, so warm and cosy.
In time I'll relate little tales of these two, plus the two cats Tumtum and Rastus. For sure they all get up to mischief and make sure we're often amused by their actions.
Free thinking about myself
The following has not been edited, corrected, or tidied up. It's a brief look inside my thoughts. I've a lot of time to think since I developed fibromyalgia, that's for sure. Anyway, here's my train of thought on a wet, cold, windy autumn afternoon.
" Since I got a glimpse of Death's Door* I think I've changed. I've read and heard about people who say this and always thought it was a bit silly,a bit sensational on the part of the survivor. But now I think they might be right. A close call changed me. No seriously, I think it has. I still have sense of humour, justice, morals, etc but it's changed. My outlook has changed. I feel very wise, as if I've been somewhere and been taught something I never knew before. I battle with feeling slightly superior, something that is not in my vocabulary usually, maybe superior is the wrong word. I'll have to get dictionary out. Because it's not that I feel 'better' than other people. Not superior in that way. But I feel I have something different. Some different kind of wisdom, a knowledge I didn't have before. I look in the mirror and in my eyes there's something there that wasn't before. Tbh it can feel a little alarming, not really knowing myself. I guess it's a temporary thing, like my panic attacks are. I kind of hope so anyway. "
* referring to my recent heart failure.
Sunday, 9 November 2014
I remembered them
Saturday, 8 November 2014
To my friend, and companion.
Soul twins stay together even when apart. They have no worries of losing each other, for they've been together centuries.
The love between them is unlike any other, it's simply 'there' they don't have to declare it. They possess an ease and comfort with each other it's as if they share the same skin.
There's only one soul twin, and to meet is so special. Many walk the earth and ether never finding each other.
Your soul twin completes you makes your soul, your essence whole.
But my dear, being twin flames, soul twins, isn't of the romantic issue. It's much more than that. Each soul is created in two parts which split,is my belief. I see human twins as souls that split but didn't part so are born to same mother. The other souls go their seperate way, being born to different mothers if born at all. Some never meet again, the lucky ones do.
When they do meet and join together it isn't necessary that the pairing is romantic or sexual, not at all, many become the strongest friends with a bond so firm they are like siblings. To my mind this way of pairing twin flames is perfect, there is enough emotion in the twins coming together as it is without adding romantic emotion to it. To have your twin flame as your closest bested friend is to be blessed indeed. It is in this way you are my twin flame, the half soul that went that way while I went this way. That we met again must surely be celebrated as our reward and high point of this life. No matter how many people are in our lives, having you is the most precious gift ever. Remember my words. "
Friday, 7 November 2014
In resus. August 2014
Death looked on while I fought the battle; waited for my breath to rattle.
Seeming to smile he held his scythe, was his pleasure to watch me writhe?
Did he enjoy to see me fight, had he no sympathy for my plight?
Then out of the grey and swirling mist, a calming hand grabbed my wrist.
Pulled me up, held me tight, whispered "not your time, my dear, not tonight".
Suddenly aware of needles and stings, stickers and wires and all sort of things,
Surrounded by angels in human disguise, determined to see that nobody dies.
These wingless beings with human features! These wonderful, trained, caring creatures!
Out of the corner of my frightened eye, I saw death give a gentle sigh,
Then with a slow firm nod of his bony head, " I'll meet you later " his essence said.
Away he faded through the flimsy veil, taking with him his coffin nail.
So I faced death and death faced me, but due to those angels he let me free.